


Blue

by StarlightSystem



Series: Transcendence AU [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Gen, Mostly Canon Compliant, Trans Character, Trans Dipper Pines, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-08 17:49:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19475626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightSystem/pseuds/StarlightSystem
Summary: A ficlet about the birth of Mabel and Dipper Pines, and how it almost went horribly wrong.





	Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This technically takes place in the [Transcendence AU](http://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/), but that really only extends to their parents' names and the final line, so this fic should be accessible even if you're not familiar with TAU.
> 
> I headcanon Dipper as a trans boy, and this is about birth, so prepare for misgendering.

August 31st.

That was their due date. That was the day their family was to double in size, and Mark Pines couldn't wait.

Nine months might as well have been nine years, and he was sure that it must've seemed even longer to his wife. But the blessed day had finally arrived, and as always, Anna was right on time.

The hospital was cold, and there were too many people in the room, some of whom he barely knew. Still, he thanked them individually for coming, even Shermie's weird brother Stan. Then he returned to his wife's side, kissed her on the cheek, and let her squeeze his hand as hard as she wanted.

The first star arrived, a little girl entering this world gurgling with some primal approximation of glee. She was swaddled in cloth and placed in Mark's arms to hold. He glowed in pride at this beautiful creature he and his wife had created. Nothing could have prepared him for the joy he was feeling right now.

They'd call her Mabel. They'd planned that, even if the old-fashioned name sounded odd to the hospital staff. They'd planned that, because they fancied themselves counterculture, and perhaps even a little mischievous, as they planned to give her twin a matching name.

Mabel's sister was due to follow any minute, but in Mark's excited mind she couldn't come quickly enough. Time seemed to stretch into infinity -- and he knew it was worse for Anna, writhing in the pain of childbirth -- but really it was only five minutes before the next star, their other little girl was delivered.

Something was wrong, though. She was too quiet, and almost as if to make up for this, little Mabel finally started to cry.

"Doc?" Mark asked, fear rushing into him even before he could properly parse what he was seeing. "Doctor Martins, why is her face blue?"

"Her umbilical cord is wrapped around her neck, but we've seen this before," the doctor responded, but his voice was a smidgen too frantic to provide Mark any relief at all, and his heart dropped out of his chest.

All the world seemed to vanish. He didn't see his wife, panting in pain and asking to see her children. He didn't see the other precious star, who was already safely born and snug in his arms. He didn't see the other members of his family, both close and distant, gathered behind him in the delivery room.

All he could see was that little baby star, face tinged with hypoxia from the thick, fleshy cord wrapped twice around her neck. He wasn't a doctor. He didn't know what to do. He was just a scared parent, about to lose someone that he already loved so, so much.

Mabel shifted in her blanket, and the world came back to him. He tried to shush her, but she was too young, too restless, her newly thinking brain recognizing every sensation as the most painful she'd ever experienced.

For a moment he thought it was something else, that maybe there was some sort of psychic connection between the twins informing Mabel that her little sister was silently dying and needed someone to speak for her. Things like that were merely superstition, made up so people could pretend that life was more exciting than it really was, but, to be powerless in a time like this -- sometimes superstition was all one had.

He didn't know what to do, so he handed the baby to a nurse, got down on his knees, closed his eyes, and prayed. It was all he  _ could _ do, and he prayed with the greatest conviction he'd ever had, prayed to the greatest god he could imagine, prayed that his tiny star wouldn't die.

He heard the soft  _ snrk _ of a knife passing through something wet, and then after a beat, opened his eyes. There was something sickly lying on his wife's stomach, something he still recognized as an umbilical cord, and there was a blue-faced baby in the doctor's hands, still too quiet, still  _ too damn quiet _ , and --

Then she took a breath, and the whole room breathed in with her.

Mark nearly shouted with joy, nearly let the tears piling up in his body drain out through his eyes, nearly passed out from all the anxiety he had been wrestling -- nearly did all of these things, and settled instead for accepting the swaddled baby being offered to him.

"What will you name her?" he faintly heard the doctor ask, sounding miles away.

He absentmindedly gave his answer, and then tuned out the response because he still couldn't believe that she was okay, that the world which had so suddenly turned dark and scary was once again a place where he felt fortunate to live.

He looked at his wife, who gave a wonky smile before succumbing to the pain medication, then he looked at his precious children, identical in all but name. It was now that he began to cry, because they had done it, they had brought these beautiful stars into the world, and now everything was going to be different. Everything was going to be better.

He looked at both babies again, and he realized there  _ was _ something different about them, other than the fact that one was still crying loudly while the other stayed silent. His eyes scanned a series of dots and lines staining the latter’s forehead, a set of blood vessels which either didn't develop properly or possibly had ruptured during those terrifying minutes where her life seemed to be in question, and he recognized them immediately.

He'd heard it said before that a baby marked with celestial imagery was destined for greatness. It was somewhat hard to see, as the blood pumping through the newborn began to tinge her face the angry red of a body not yet used to life -- so, so much better than the blue of impending death -- it was hard to see, but that was definitely the Big Dipper etched on his youngest daughter's forehead.

Mark smiled, even as the nurses beckoned him to give up his children, because they wanted to make sure they were both going to be okay, and he nodded and said sure, sure, as if he were really listening, when really his mind was completely occupied with his two precious children.

He thanked the stars, or anyone up there who was willing to listen, for the new life in his family. He didn't truly know if anyone had heard him, but he could see now what was so appealing about belief and superstition. As he watched the nurses carry his babies out of the room, he continued to hope and pray that his littlest would live for a long, long time.

(120 years later, a demon marked with the very same constellation found himself wishing for exactly the opposite.)

**Author's Note:**

> Dipper almost getting strangled by his umbilical cord is [actually canon](http://66.media.tumblr.com/231a1571cf05fd2b02de0cf1c86d546d/tumblr_inline_nwjvq9K46I1qekai0_400.jpg), and I've been having a lot of feels about that, and thus this fic was born.


End file.
